At the bright sound announcing a slot machine win, the person beside me gaped so wide their jaw looked ready to hit the floor...
And a mountain of casino chips was pouring out with such force it looked impossible to even think about picking them all up.
"A jackpot? Which machine?"
"It just blew? Right now?"
The sudden jackpot drew the attention of countless guests.
And naturally, once everyone's attention turned this way...
"Hold on there..."
"We'll need to verify your identity."
That meant the staff's attention would turn this way too.
They were looking at us with an ominous air, as if they had noticed something.
"Why is the atmosphere so hostile? Is it a crime to hit it big at a casino?"
"In this place, luck doesn't work the way we normally understand it. If you were gathering luck and releasing it all at once, or trickling it in little by little to just break even, maybe. But for a jackpot to go off the moment you enter? That's impossible here."
So basically, we'd pulled off blatant cheat play in front of everyone's eyes.
In front of the game administrator, no less.
"The chips are falling like stars!"
Please shut up, Don Quixote.
As I was desperately holding back the urge to swing my spear, a cold, cutting voice from beside me made me regain my composure on its own.
"I thought at least the Manager would have some sense of responsibility... but you were reduced to falling for Don Quixote's coaxing."
"I'm disappointed. No matter how you look at it, you're the Manager, of all people. I thought this time, at least, you might wash away the disgrace of your previous failure."
...Ishmael's merciless barbs snapped my reason back into place in an instant.
She was radiating such a gloomy mood beside me that I couldn't even bring myself to say anything back...
"...Wait, that doesn't seem like the only problem here..."
Gregor, who had been quickly scanning the surroundings in response to the sudden situation, made a face like he had just seen something shocking and pointed somewhere.
Everyone's gaze followed Gregor's finger, and at the end of it...
"Since when were you wearing your own clothes as-is, Ryoshu?"
Ryoshu stood there in her usual outfit, wearing a sullen expression.
"I do not wear clothes discarded by others."
Good for you.
...Why are there so few normal people on this team?
"Ha... Manager, it looks like we..."
"Uh... it looks like we're screwed. Properly..."
And then Epi, who had joined us after hearing the commotion, stared at us with a shell-shocked expression.
"This is impossible... How much did we pour into this plan..."
"Faust, how are you planning to carry out the mission with people like this? Aren't you supposed to be one of the greatest geniuses in the City? Do something, anything!"
We're sorry, Epi.
Even though I was clearly not the one at fault, I couldn't lift my head.
"Though I haven't spent long with these people, I have learned one thing."
...Could Faust have something to get us out of this?
"It is to become a Faust who believes in uncertainty."
"Once the absence of a plan becomes the plan, no variable remains a variable."
"This is my plan."
...That just means having no plan.
"..."
"...Haa."
Even under Epi's dumbfounded stare and Ishmael's low sigh, Faust kept her calm expression and looked at Dante.
Perhaps something in Faust's words had clicked, because Dante's gestures, which had been wavering under Ishmael's criticism, seemed to steady.
"Then... as always..."
"Let's go kill and be killed."
Yeah, our lot really is what it is.
This time, I swore I'd smack Don Quixote's head in the middle of it, no matter what.
With that grim resolve, I raised my spear.
"Suspicious individuals. Seize them!"
...Though the ones likely to get beaten to death were the casino guards who'd come to stop us.
"Ghk!"
Clang—!
Crash——
"Seize them!"
The casino began turning into a complete mess in an instant.
Guards and prisoners mixed together in a chaotic melee, and the guests, who valued their lives more than money, fled in panic.
Crunch—!
"Now's our chance!"
Crack——
"Tch...!"
Blows were exchanged between the prisoners and the guards, and both sides landed decent hits on each other.
That only benefited us, so I didn't hesitate and launched my attack.
"Hup!"
First, I broke their stance with a light upward strike,
Clang—!
then spun through the opening...
Whoosh—
and brought it down for a finishing blow!
Thud—!
As one target after another dropped, it felt like the end of the fight was finally coming into view.
Good. If we keep this up...
Tatatatatak——
"More are coming!"
...Of course it wouldn't end that easily.
Looks like this was going to be a long fight.
The prisoners seemed to realize that too, and everyone wore bored expressions.
And among them, there was one person who stood out...
"This is too frustrating to watch."
"How long are you going to keep dealing with those riffraff?"
As expected, it was Ryoshu.
"People who say things like that usually never offer a clear answer."
Ryoshu heard Ishmael's sarcasm, shook her head, then put on an expression that seemed to say, watch closely.
"...This is art."
"You there, hand me that sword."
"You may take it forever."
"It would be better if the blade left me and drifted through the air for all eternity."
"Thanks."
Ryoshu took Yi Sang's dagger, then, just as Yi Sang had said, threw the blade straight into the air.
The dagger pierced the chandelier's mounting fixture with perfect precision, and the chandelier immediately began to sway dangerously.
Damn... how good do you have to be with a blade to pull that off?
I couldn't help but admire the sight of her throwing a dagger she didn't even normally use and breaking a thin fixture in one shot.
Was combat ability also the best in the hands of the most insane-looking person?
In any case, everyone's gaze poured toward the chandelier, which was wobbling precariously...
And the chandelier, unable to bear the shame, eventually...
"Faintly, it crumbles away."
"Huh?"
"W- Watch out!"
Crash———!!
With a piercingly loud noise, it slammed into the floor.
...Nothing?
The chandelier had fallen to the floor.
And nothing happened.
We and the enemies stared blankly at the chandelier lying in the middle of the battlefield for a moment.
"Hey, what was that supposed to be, Ryoshu?"
"...A performance."
"...What an incredible performance. I'll give it a perfect 10 for artistry."
"Hmph."
Taking sarcasm as praise with such a smug expression only made it twice as irritating.
...Our prisoners had never exactly been normal, but today was especially bad.
"Still, I'm glad everyone's safe!"
Sinclair's cheerful words didn't offer much comfort.
"...Though I'm not sure we'll stay safe for long."
As Ishmael said, the fight wasn't over yet.
"Seize them!!"
And the other side looked like they were going to get serious too.
Still...
Even if I said that, objectively speaking, the situation was turning in our favor.
Srrk—
"Handled!"
The strength of the Seven Association Fixers lies in assassination.
It must have become much easier to ambush them than before. Darkness was their everyday life, after all.
"Watch the dark spots!"
The enemy wasn't stupid enough to keep taking that forever.
But if their attention was drawn elsewhere, that meant the front line had become a little sloppy.
Thud—!
"Gently!"
Thwack—!
"Looks like it's going well."
Breaking through that was the specialty of the Liu Association, which excelled in large-scale frontal combat.
And so the battle grew more and more intense...
Crash—!
Boom—
...and the first floor turned into an ever greater disaster.
"Just in case I should mention..."
"You do know our goal isn't to destroy the casino's first floor, but to win the gamble happening on the top floor, right?"
We're already struggling to fight, so where would we find the room to think about that, Sword?
...Of course, since the fight was entirely our fault, I decided not to say anything.
"Reaching the top floor is important, but winning the game is the final objective..."
"We need enough wish power for that."
"I won't even mention how the wish power we struggled so hard to seize was turned to dust for an absurd reason all at once. It only hurts to think about."
Well, I have nothing to say to that.
"Where can we get the most wish power here?"
Otis asked a good question.
Among the prisoners, she was one of the very few who truly took the mission seriously, so she was reliable in moments like this.
"That roulette at the entrance. Guests who come to the casino test their luck there and either lose wish power or receive it."
"I see. Then I'll seize the wish jar attached to that roulette when I get the chance."
"Can you really do that?"
"I have carried out operations far larger than this countless times."
"The Manager's ridiculous mistakes are nothing."
"It must be because of those wastes that clouded your judgment! Do not let their words trouble you!"
...There was an unmistakable, faint tremor in Otis's voice.
So even Otis couldn't fully defend Dante's behavior with a straight face after all.
"Absurd... I see... Ah!"
While we were making this plan...
Tatatatak—
Heathcliff had already started running toward the entrance.
Maybe because he'd been exposed to too much mental damage, he'd missed information he normally would have caught.
"Heathcliff?!"
"Damn it, how long are you going to keep flapping your mouths and sitting around on the first floor?"
Then he started shouting at the guards with all his might.
"Aren't you ashamed of yourselves?"
"That blond bastard over there is just a greenhorn with milk still on his lips."
"And that so-called Manager can't even hold a weapon properly because his memory goes haywire."
"And you're huffing and puffing against the likes of us..."
"Keh... th-that bastard..."
It worked.
"H-Heathcliff... that's too much..."
"Yeah, too much, Heathcliff."
...It seemed to work a little too well.
Of course, Heathcliff didn't care and added one more line.
"That mace in your hand is wasted on you."
"You insolent wretch...!"
Whoosh—
In the end, unable to swallow Heathcliff's finishing blow, the guard hurled his rage-filled mace at him with a threatening sound—and
Crash————!!!
as Heathcliff twisted his body at the last second to dodge, the roulette behind him shattered to pieces.
Ah... damn... life really is...